"Wouldn't been so bad," Coonskin resumed, "If one of our original party hadn't got scalped by Esquimaux when crossing the Arabian Desert."
"I want ter know!" the stranger exclaimed. "How did it happen?" As he spoke, he sat down near the board and whittled a stick, now and then eyeing Coonskin with overdue interest.
"Well, you see," the valet began, "we were trailing on the desert at night, because the sun in India is so hot, when he suddenly hailed what we took to be a caravan. But instead of one outfit, there were three, all of 'em enemies of each and tother—Hottentots, Spaniards, and Solomon Islanders, all at lagerheads. Say, weren't we in a nice mess!"
"'Pears so," the farmer ejaculated, with wrapt phiz.
"At once all tried to capture us," Coonskin continued, "but pretty soon fell to fighting among themselves; and that'e how we escaped. But Jack got shot." Coonskin looked as if he had lost his last friend.
"Poor Jack," muttered Prof., shaking his head sorrowfully.
I saw plainly the story had touched the stranger's heart. "Purty sad, wasn't it boys?" he commented. "Didn't ye have no shootin' irons along?" he asked.
"Should say we did—a whole battery," said the valet. "We shot several of the black demons (here waxing excited as he recalled the harrowing spectacle), but what was a thousand of them compared with one Jack!" And Coonskin tickled me in the ribs.
"Ner a hundred Jacks," returned the farmer absentmindedly, and looking thoughtful. Then Pod said it was time to be going, and offered to pay the farmer for the board he had much enjoyed; but the latter said he "didn't want no pay," and, after offering Pod and Coonskin his plug of tobacco, clambered into his wagon and drove off.
Then we made for Glenwood Springs.